Outdoor Living

Sweet pea meltdown

A vision of fabulous, fragrant flowers danced in my head, but it was pure fancy

Steve Whysall had expert advice at his fingertips, but his yard didn't explode with sweet peas, such as the 'Explorer'. Since the blooms are too beautiful to ignore, he's now planning next year's fling.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Vancouver Sun

Back in March, I decided it was time to prove once and for all that I could grow sweet peas.

I have not had a lot of luck at doing this over the years.

Yes, a pot here and there and a few rather sad-looking plants popping up in the garden, but nothing like the fabulous displays I have seen in other people's gardens.

I wondered what I was doing wrong and called Renee Shepherd, the queen of sweet peas, in California.

Through her company, Renee's Garden, she sells at least 26 varieties, including all the best antique, designer and scented varieties.

She gave me detailed instructions: Use fresh seed, sow early in March, nick each seed with nail clippers, experiment by soaking seed overnight, protect seedlings with bird netting and, most importantly, make sure they are planted in a well-drained, sunny location.

Okay, I did all of that. I planted dozens of packets of seed. In containers. Up trellises. In the garden against a fence with chicken wire. In raised beds. In the perennial border.

I had visions of fabulous, fragrant flowers dancing in my head - colours ranging from pink and mauve to apricot and crimson, blues and purples.

I spent a whole day planting seed in pretty much every part of my garden - full sun to partial shade - just to see where they performed best.

What happened?

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Squat. Not a single flower.

Yes, it's kind of embarrassing, but what can I say? I did it by the book, I took my time, I went to a lot of effort.

I sowed all the best kinds: 'April in Paris,' 'Saltwater Taffy Swirls,' 'Mary Lou Heard' and 'Zinfandel'.

Old-fashioned heirloom varieties dating back to the early 1900s such as 'Queen of Hearts,' 'Jewels of Albion' and 'Perfume Delight'.

I sowed dwarf "knee-high" varieties, ones that only grow 90 cm to 1.4 m (three to four feet) high, in containers; ones like 'Jack and Jill', 'Electric Blue' and 'Explorer'.

I found perfect spots for short and cascading Cupid types, supposedly ideal for growing in window boxes and hanging pots, such as 'Colour Palette Cupid' and 'Window box Heirloom Cupid'.

And I planted some of the more artsy designer sweet peas, like 'Royal Wedding', which has pure white flowers, and 'Lipstick,' with vivid red flowers.

I even planted some nondescript, generic type sweet peas from McFaydens just to compare them to these other specialty connoisseur types.

Some seed I soaked for a few hours, others I nicked, others I just pushed into the soil.

By comparison, and to my chagrin, my colleague Fran Uttaro, in advertising promotions here at the paper, tells me she has had fantastic success. Grrrr.

She has been growing sweet peas successfully for at least 15 years.

"I kept the seed from previous years and I can't remember the variety. I make sure to buy the types that have fragrance noted on the package.

"I soak the seed for 24 hours, then plant them directly outside, in planters, usually the first or second week of March.

"This year, I left it until the last week of March because it was very cold and rainy."

Uttaro says powdery mildew often hits her sweet peas in mid-August.

"I take this as a sign to let the remaining flowers develop into seed pods, which I then label by colour and save for next year. This year was a very good crop. They like a cooler summer."

In Surrey, Claire Muirhead has also had success. She started seed inside and planted outside in May, she tells me.

"My sweet peas are lovely.

"I am in a new house and the sweet peas in my garden of five months look good. I am very proud of how they have matured considering the rain we have had."

I called Shepherd to report my failure and she was convinced it was caused by either birds eating the seedlings or excessively wet ground due to the poor weather in March-April.

I told her I was disappointed but I was not giving up on my quest to grow a bumper crop of sweet peas.

"Oh, it would be premature and a grave mistake to do that," she said.

"They are too nice to give up on. When seed doesn't germinate after three or four weeks, I always recommend sowing more seed."

"It has been a brutal and difficult season so far, and clearly the usual rules don't apply, including the one that says to plant your sweet peas in early spring.

"I find that with our perpetually cool wet spring weather in our supposedly mild climate, by waiting until mid-to late April to plant my sweet peas, I get great results and blooms all summer long.

"This year it was definitely the way to go -as I do have a tremendous stand of sweet peas from seed that started blooming heavily in July and are still at it.

"The second planting I made in late May is just coming into bloom now, so I have another round coming on."

She says friends who planted in March in Seattle also found that their seedlings didn't make it and had to replant again later.

I agree it has indeed been a disappointing year in the garden, but I am not prepared to throw in the towel on sweet peas just yet.

Miserable though I may be at the absence of flowers, I have decided to try again next year, sowing seeds indoors, soaking overnight, and planting out later in spring. Hope that works.

swhysall@vancouversun.com

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OTHER RESULTS

Some other misses and a couple of hits in my garden this year: Blue lupins I picked up the idea of growing blue lupins to improve the nitrogen in the soil from gardeners at Hidcote Garden in Gloucestershire. Apparently, the gardeners there routinely plant blue lupins, which they dig back into the soil once they have finished flowering at the end of the season.

So I picked up a pack of seeds being offered as part of a promotional partnership the garden had with the Yorkshire Trust.

The idea is that you can make your garden greener by digging the lupins back into the ground when they are finished.

I sowed 20 seeds. Have not seen a single plant as yet.

Dwarf buddleia 'Blue Chip' Planted one of these in a beautiful black container with some calibrachoa. The calibrachoa have bloomed well, but not a single flower on the 'Blue Chip'. A friend tells me she has had big success with this buddleia, but she got it as a mature plant, which may make a difference.

Clematis in planter boxes I planted two of Raymond Evison's new dwarf patio clematis in a large terra cotta pot with trellising. This worked well. The clematis look healthy and bloomed for a long time and I am expecting them to do even better next year. I will be taking Evison's advice and cutting back almost to ground level in the fall. He says this will produce bushier, more vigorous plants.

Low-growing bush dahlias I was very excited about this planting ever since I fell in love with the low-growing, bedding bush dahlias at David Jack's first-class nursery, Ferncliff Gardens in Mission, last August. I planted tubers of 'Terra cotta' and 'Ellen Huston' in spring. I am only starting to see flowers this month, but they do look good.

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Steve Whysall had expert advice at his fingertips, but his yard didn't explode with sweet peas, such as the 'Explorer'. Since the blooms are too beautiful to ignore, he's now planning next year's fling.

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